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Netanyahu: The UNHRC Isn’t Interested in the Facts

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu denounced the UN Human Rights Council on Friday, following its decision to endorse the report accusing Israel of war crimes during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

"The UN Human Rights Council is not interested in the facts and is not really interested in human rights,” Netanyahu charged in a statement.

“On the day on which Israel was fired at from Sinai, and at a time when ISIS is committing vicious terrorist attacks in Egypt, as [Syrian President Bashar] Assad slaughters his people in Syria and as the number of arbitrary executions per annum climbs in Iran – the UN Human Rights Council decides to condemn the State of Israel for no fault of its own, for acting to defend itself from a murderous terrorist organization,” he continued.

“Israel is a stable democracy in the Middle East that upholds equal rights for all its citizens and acts in accordance with international law.

“Those who fear to openly attack terrorism will – in the end – be attacked by terrorism,” Netanyahu said.

“The council that has hitherto adopted more decisions against Israel than against all other countries cannot call itself a human rights council.

“The State of Israel will continue to defend its citizens against those who call for its destruction and take daily action to achieve this goal," he concluded.

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid denounced the decision as well.

"There is no limit to the hypocrisy of Europe,” he said, in reference to the fact that among those who voted in favor of adopting the report were EU countries France, Germany, UK, Ireland and the Netherlands.

“The UN Human Rights Council today adopted the report of the UN commission of inquiry into Protective Edge. While in Israel the ‘Red Alert’ siren was heard and the people of the south were forced once again to deal with the terrible reality of life in the shadow of terrorism, countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom voted in favor of the report, which is a joke at best and at worst a sad testimony to the shocking hypocrisy of the world,” continued Lapid.

“None of the world's countries that voted for the resolution today has a right to preach to Israel. The IDF is the most moral army in the world who had to deal with a reality that no country would be willing to accept. Those who will pay for today’s decision are those countries that supported this terrible resolution and must deal with the fact that 30 British citizens were killed in a terrorist attack in Tunisia this week,” he said.

“Today's vote proves once again the importance of our strategic alliance with the United States and our need to preserve it,” added Lapid.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)